


I Think It's Going to Rain Today

by softjoycebyers



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Baby Fic, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Heist Family, Light Angst, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 08:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16850659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softjoycebyers/pseuds/softjoycebyers
Summary: Debbie and Lou finally get it together well enough to start the next chapter of their lives. But it’s never that easy is it?





	I Think It's Going to Rain Today

**Author's Note:**

> Let me just preface this by saying, I got my M.D. from the Grey's Anatomy school of medicine, so I've definitely taken creative license here. 
> 
> All mistakes are my own, I'm a one-person editing machine.
> 
> Tammy, I'm sorry I've kept you waiting for so long.
> 
> Enjoy!

Lou walks out into the waiting room, removing the disposable head cap from the top of her head, hair falling onto her sides freely and fringe bangs in her eyes. 

She sits down heavily in the nearest chair – she hardly gets a moment to breathe, however, let alone process her thoughts when the six other women in the room pounce on her at once. 

“Lou?” Tammy asks hesitantly. She was the unofficial spokeswoman for the group – at least as far as matter of Debbie and Lou were concerned, having known them both the longest. 

Lou tunes out their murmurs. She just needed a few seconds to herself, and she’s realized too late coming into the waiting room may have not the best idea but it’s where her feet carried her and she didn’t know where else she’d go. 

She tries to pinpoint where exactly things had started going wrong… the pregnancy was relatively smooth… the delivery had gone somewhat according to plan. 

Somewhere towards the end though things took a turn and it left her reeling. She was rushed so quickly out of the operating room, she barely heard her daughter’s first cry but she certainly registered the steady decline of her wife’s heartbeat on the monitor. 

Lou now wasn’t sure how long she stood behind the closed door in that cold empty hallway but she was here. 

“Not right now Tam Tam.” Her throat is dry and rough to her own ears as if she hadn’t had water in months, but it’s not to stop the others’ impending questions.

Tammy and Nine Ball sit on either side of her; Daphne, Rose, Amita, and Constance take the helm on the floor at her – the scuffed boots she’s wearing had long ago poked a hole through the thin material of the elastic disposable shoe covers. 

 

––O8––

 

Lou had barely taken off her coat and settled back in bed when Debbie comes out the bathroom and practically jumps her, straddling her lap. 

“We need to talk.”

Lou wrinkles her nose at her partner, “those words are never a good sign, hon.”

“How’s this for a sign?” Debbie takes out the white plastic stick from her jeans pocket and holds it up to her lovers face – two very bold pink lines shown on display on the screen. 

Lou lets out a incredulous laugh, breath caught in her windpipe, “is that what I think that is?”

“What do you think?” Debbie smiles from ear to ear, her whole face brightening – a rare crack in Deborah Ocean’s tough facade, and a sight that always takes Lou’s breath away no matter how many times she’s been privy to it. 

“Don’t fucking shit me Ocean.” Lou gawks at her, “is this real? It worked?”

Debbie nods her head eagerly in confirmation. 

“Very real, baby,” she leans in to kiss a still very stunned Lou. “And just in case I didn’t believe the first two tests I took there are three more in the bathroom.”

Debbie snorts when when Lou flips them on the bed, gently pinning her down on the mattress. 

“Holy shit, Deb, you’re really pregnant.” Lou marvels at her. Her childlike exuberance is almost too much for Debbie sometimes – even at their lowest, both apart and together, it was a quality Lou’s never lost and one Debbie’s not sure she’d ever possessed. 

“That’s incredible,” Lou nuzzles her nose. “We’re going to be parents, can you believe it? Two criminals and a baby.”

“That sounds like a really bad 80s sitcom, love, and we’re definitely not a sitcom.”

The topic of children had not been one they’d ever discussed seriously – Debbie not having the first clue of what to do with one, and Lou didn’t have a family to speak of. 

But… they had been spending more time with Tammy’s kids in the year since heist – being the more mature of the group meant Tammy trusted them the most with her kids, and the more time Debbie spent with them, the less she minded being first on the call sheet. 

Debbie never believed in the metaphorical ticking of biological clocks, and she had only just started to accept that seeing Lou with kids did anything to her at all. However, it wasn’t until one of their sitting nights with the kids when they were all watching a movie with a ridiculously long title about a doomsday clock – of all things – Keri and Derek not even making it to the end of the film and falling asleep on top of an already slumbering Lou did she realize she wanted that feeling permanently. 

“You’re gonna be a mom.”

“So are you.”

Lou hums, mirth shining in her eyes, “that’s going to get confusing.”

Debbie laughs bringing their intertwined hands to rest on her still flat tummy.

“We’ll figure it out.”

 

––O8––

 

“Lou, what happened?”

The woman in question looks at Tammy but it’s unfocused – she tries so hard to keep it together but her face is crumbling, she doesn’t know how to stop it, and Tammy’s at a loss. 

In the time they’ve known each other, Tammy can count on one finger the number of times she’s seen Lou cry, and she’s no more prepared for it now than she was back then when Debbie went to prison. 

“I don’t know…” Lou trials off covering her face with her hands. “Debbie… she… she was fine and then… I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Tammy breathes shakily looking at all the women huddled together. “We’re going to get through this. Deb’s gonna be okay.”

Lou wanted to believe her but she struggled keeping her head above water when every worse case scenario kept running through her head. 

“I can’t lose her.”

“You won’t,” Tammy shakes her head adamantly, sounding a lot stronger than felt. 

“Lou, what about the baby? 

She hopes changing the subject could help coax her friend out the dark hole she’s plunging into. 

The blonde inhales deeply, “the baby’s fine. She’s fine, I think.”

“What do you mean think? Wait, it’s a girl?”

“Yeah,” Lou sniffs. “Well, I couldn’t really hear it much but, yeah.” She smirks faintly looking down to Daphne, “You were right all along… and from what I did hear, she’s got the healthiest pair of lungs I’ve ever heard,” her voice breaks off. 

Tammy runs a soothing hand down her back. 

“It’s okay, hon. We’re right here.”

 

––O8––

 

Debbie looked around the white sterile room – it reminded her of her cell in solitary and she closes her eyes to ward off the memories. She wasn’t in prison, and this wasn’t her cell, she tries to remind herself. 

The room she’s in now is not small and completely devoid of sunlight, it didn’t have a heavy steel door that sucked the air out of the room every time it closed behind her or the guard. 

No – this room was twice as big as her cell, bathed in natural sunlight washing out the lights overhead, and there were posters about reproductive health hung on the wall. 

And Lou – her Lou, was sitting in a chair against the wall under a diagram of a uterus, one leg crossed over the other, reading a birthing brochure. 

Debbie would have laughed at the unconscious facial expressions crossing her lover’s face if she wasn’t so nervous. 

“Can you come sit by me and hold my hand?”

“Of course,” Lou throws the brochure on table next to her and slides her chair up to the side of her Debbie’s exam bed. 

She straddles the back of the chair taking wife’s hand and bringing it to her lips, “what’s up?”

“Nothing,” the other woman sighs. “I’m just nervous.”

Lou nods, accepting her answer.

“Alright,” She uses her other hand to smooth the hair from Debbie’s face. “You and Buzzy are fine.”

Debbie closes her eyes again, smiling at the nickname, and taking in Lou’s words. 

“And I’m here, holding your hand.”

Debbie prided herself on control – besides being a criminal mastermind it was one of the other things she was best it. She couldn’t be nervous running cons, the whole thing would fall apart if she wasn’t completely in control at all times. 

Emotions, she had decided early on, were frivolous. To be a good crook one had to be cold, calculating, and cunning. It was something she and Danny were taught practically from birth – and she’s carried this line of thinking well into adulthood and often to her own detriment. 

Vulnerability was new to Debbie, having never learned to navigate the prism of her own emotions, she dealt with them the only way she knew how, and that was not dealing with them at all. But she was learning, and they were learning together. It just took them longer than most to get there. 

She knew Lou didn’t have this problem, and she sometimes envied her wife’s ability to jump head first into things, and still come out relatively unscathed on the other side. Though, she’s acknowledged that has its drawback too – but that’s why they worked so well together and balanced the other out, Lou could keep her present like no one else could.

Debbie opens her eyes once more, feeling leveled with Lou’s hand anchoring her to the bed, “What were you reading?” She asks, remembering the now discarded brochure. 

“Nothing,” Lou shrugs. 

“‘When Your Water Breaks, What’s Next?’ is not nothing.”

“Okay… well it’s not something you need to worry about now,” Lou amends. 

“Right,” the brunette drawls narrowing her eyes. 

Lou doesn’t want to tell Debbie that she’d probably never unsee the life-like images of a baby traveling through the birth canal.

“Just know I love you, and I’m absolutely chuffed it’s you and not me doing this,” she jokes. 

The doctor walks in then – an olive-toned woman of mid-height who’s humor was as sharp as her intellect and the heels on her feet. She had kind eyes, and smile that always lit up her face.

“Debbie, Lou,” she greets them. “How are you feeling today?”

She begins the preliminary exam, running down a litany of old and new questions for Debbie’s 8th week – patiently answering concerns along the way. 

“It’s okay to be nervous Debbie,” the doctor says on her way to the sink to wash her hands and change out her gloves. “It’s all part of the process. You’re doing fine. I got you.”  
Turning back to the couple, gloves snapped in place, she says, “alright, who wants to see a baby?” 

 

––O8––

 

Constance was the first one to notice the doctor walking towards them, she makes a motion for the women to get up from the floor and the other three sitting follow suit. 

“Lou…”

“Debbie?”

“She’s going to be fine Lou,” the doctor answers. “I know things got crazy back there, and fast. I’m sorry for that, but Debbie’s okay.”

If it hadn’t been for Tammy’s surprisingly strong arm around her holding her up she probably would have fallen under the weight of relief she felt. 

“What happened?”

“There was a rupture in the placenta, that we must have missed as we were getting the baby out… and the baby is fine, she’s doing good… but Debbie’s blood pressure took a bit of a nose dive and she started losing consciousness,” the tired woman takes a breath, “it’s why we had to get you out so quickly, we could only focus on one person at a time, but your wife is okay. We just moved her back to her room, and she should be waking up soon.”

Lou begins to follow the doctor down the hall – the other women are right behind. 

The doctors stops in mid-stride, turning back to the group, “just mom right now, guys.”

“Stand down okay?” Lou pleads with them, “I’ll come back to get you as soon as I’m able, alright.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, “give us some time.”

Reluctantly the girls agree, they’re just as eager to see Debbie as Lou is. 

“You have a healthy group of friends,” the doctor observes leading Lou in the direction of Debbie’s room. 

“Yeah,” the other woman concedes. “More like family, and they’re probably a better lot than I deserve.”

Lou would never admit it out loud, but the combination of stealing 38 million dollars worth in diamonds, the shared risk of getting caught, the subsequent bond they’ve all formed because of it, coupled with the amount of times each woman has come in and out of her loft both together and individually, eating her, and making her actually pay for heat; well they’re as tight as any dysfunctional crime family could be. If not more. 

 

––O8––

 

Debbie’s bed sat in the middle of the room – she looked too pale for Lou’s liking – Lou knew Debbie would hate to be perceived as weak, even if no one actually thought that. But her heart beat a steady rhythm and the rise and fall of her chest reassured Lou, and she realized  
it only took seeing Debbie to quiet the voices in her head. 

Everything had happened so fast. First they learned the baby was on it side, it had shown no signs of budging, and they couldn’t wait much longer for the baby to turn. 

But they weren’t worried then. Their doctor was one of the best in the business and they trusted her implicitly. They talked about their new options, they could stick it out a bit longer, though the longer they waited the less oxygen the baby would get, the doctor was sure to remind them, or they could do a cesarean and have their baby in a matter of minutes. The natural birth they had originally planned for was definitely out of the question now.

And the answer was easy. It was only in the last few minutes of the delivery where things went south, and Lou would rather not relive that. 

Lou went to sit by Debbie’s bed, belatedly noticing the doctor had left her alone. 

She toyed with the idea of touching her wife’s arm, but she was hesitant to disturb her before she woke up on her own. Her thoughts however were interrupted by a NICU nurse rolling in a bassinet.

“I was told to bring her up.”

“Oh… yes. Of course.”

“Would you like to hold her?”

Lou pauses. She’s never really held a baby before, and certainly not one that small.

The nurse picks up on her apprehension, and smiles gently at her, “it’s alright, I’m here to help you.”

She shows Lou how to cradle her arms, and picks the baby up from the cot, “good, now just make sure to support the head, and that’s really all there is to it.”

Lou nods, keeping still for fear it might disturb the sleeping baby who’s now wiggling awkwardly in her arms. 

The nurse frowns in mock disapproval, she takes the baby back from Lou, getting a better idea. She instructs Lou to sit back right in the chair, asking her to pull her shirt down.

“What for?” Lou asks confused, but still does as she’s told. 

“It’s called skin-to-skin, or the kangaroo method,” the young nurse says placing the baby now on Lou’s chest, Lou’s hands automatically encircling the tiny body. 

“See, you’re doing better already! It’s quite popular and it’ll help you both bond and relax.”

The nurse might have a point, Lou acquiesces. Feeling the baby move against her as she breathed was probably the lightest she’s felt all day, and it was definitely her new favorite thing.

Out of the corner of her eye Lou can see the nurse’s mouth moving but she’s too distracted with swaddled newborn yawning on her chest. 

Her trance is momentarily broken by an imperceptible head butts to her breast, and the laugh that escapes her once it dawns on her what’s going on, comes from deep inside her belly. 

“I think you’ve got the wrong mum, Buz.”

“She’s probably getting hungry. Ms. Ocean should be waking up soon, and then we try feeding her. I’ll be back with the specialist for that.”

Minutes pass as Lou studies the tiny human stretching against her, quiet engulfing the room once more, a little arm had peaks out from under the blanket and moves towards her face, Lou places her finger in the smaller palm, and the baby wraps her stubby fingers around it. 

“So, is this my new competition?”

Lou’s heads snaps at attention to the new yet familiar voice she misses when she’s gone too long without it. 

“Jealous, Ocean?”

“Hardly,” Debbie smiles weakly, trying to adjust her position in the uncomfortable bed. 

Lou moves as quickly as she can with the sleeping baby in her arms to get her some water from the side table. 

“You really shouldn’t move around too much,” she says as she sits in the space Debbie made for her on the bed. 

“Thanks,” Debbie gulps the water down handing the glass back to Lou when she’d done. 

Debbie holds her arms out for her daughter, and Lou passes her over swiftly, “so, you’re the one who’s been wiggling around in there,” she trails the tip of her index finger down the soft curve of the baby’s nose. 

She feels Lou jerk next her, her laugh intermingled with a sob, and her head falls onto Debbie’s shoulder. 

“God, you really scared the shit out of me, Deb.” 

Debbie leans her head on top of Lou’s, “I scared me too, baby.”

They watch the fluttering of their little one’s eyes, both wondering if she’d actually open them.

After a beat, “What do you think of Danielle? We can call her Dani, for short?”

Debbie clears her throat, suddenly overcome, “yeah," and try as she might she couldn’t keep the emotion from her voice.

“I think it’s perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos to you if you caught any references! 
> 
> Reviews feed my soul so drop me a line and let me know what you think <3 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> *I changed the title because I hated the other one and this is the song I was listening to when I started editing.


End file.
